


Icarus Had It Easy

by theworthofhollin



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Raven Reyes, F/F, Femslash February, Kind of AU, Lesbian Character, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-25
Updated: 2015-03-18
Packaged: 2018-03-15 04:36:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3433775
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theworthofhollin/pseuds/theworthofhollin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It starts like this: a loose coil in a collapsable compartment slices open the skin of Raven’s palm. Or maybe it starts like this: Raven needs stitches. Or maybe, really, it starts like this: Raven falls in love.</p><p> </p><p>(AU Where Raven meets Clarke on the Ark Station, and a lot of feelings get muddled along the way)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Leap

**Author's Note:**

> this is mainly in response to my bitterness over the supreme lack of raven love in fic. also, CANONICALLY BI CLARKE GRIFFIN. (but really, its been canon since Octavia's strip tease in the pilot ep, so this was a long time coming)
> 
> Rating will definitely be upped in the following chapters. 
> 
> (also, because im cruel, in this AU im going to assume that gay relationships aren't condoned on the ark due to the "waste of reproductive resources" aka thinly veiled bigotry)

It starts like this: a loose coil in a collapsable compartment slices open the skin of Raven’s palm. She doesn’t even feel it at first, too focused on the faulty wiring above her head, but she hears Finn walk into the apartment and then “Holy shit. _Holy shit_ , Raven, is that blood?”

So maybe it starts like this: Finn, panicking, practically shoving her through the Med Bay entrance with a dirty rag around her hand, still dripping blood onto the clean white floors. Whoops. She slouches down onto the nearest open table, kicking her heels against the metal sides.

 “God, Finn, chill. It’s a damn paper cut.” He glares at her, but his glares are pathetic to an extreme degree so she just laughs in his face and waves him off with her rag hand.

Raven is still smiling, a little, when he comes back with an older woman, her messy, dark blonde hair tucked under a scrub cap and sharp eyes flicking over her quickly. “All right, what happened—Raven, is it? My name is Doctor Griffin.” She flips the hand over and unravels the rag efficiently, taking a long look at the cut. Its deeper than Raven thought it was, and she feels a small bubble of nervousness spread through her stomach. That’s her good hand, her working hand; she _needs_ that hand, what if she can’t— 

“Looks like you got lucky.” At the Doctor’s words, the tension bleeds out as quickly as it came. “No tissue damage, but you will need stitches.” 

“Awesome,” Raven says, and she’s pretty impressed with the fact that her voice doesn’t even wobble. “That’s awesome—let’s do it. My shift is in an hour.”

Finn protests immediately. “Wait, no, doesn’t she need like, transfusions or something? Painkillers? Bed rest?” He leans in to hover over her shoulder and she rolls her eyes at Dr. Griffin, who’s watching with a raised brow and a knowing gaze. “She lost too much blood, she’s probably dizzy or, or weak, or something. She looks a little weak.”  

The Doc smiles slightly and waves a hand over to an intern in the opposite corner, somewhere over Raven’s shoulder. “Collins, right?” Finn nods, still mother henning in the background. “Why don’t you wait outside and I’ll get Clarke to stitch her up. She’ll be fine.”

Raven smirks at her boyfriend, sharp, and a little mean. (‘ _She looks weak._ ’ Bullshit.) “Go home, Finn. It’s just stitches, I’ll find you later.” If she’s being honest with herself, she maybe just doesn’t want him to be here in case it hurts more than she’s expecting. (She’s never gotten stitches before. She has no real frame of reference—but fuck if she lets somebody see her cry.)

He looks at her, a little bit hurt, before nodding and lifting her other hand to his lips in a gentle goodbye kiss before walking out. She wants to laugh, because _jeez_ , what a drama queen, but then she glances up at the intern who’s untying her scrub mask and walking across the med bay towards her, and the laugh dries up in her throat in a blink.

If she were in an old Hollywood Earth-vid, she’s pretty sure this part would be in slow-mo. With, like, angels in the background.

The girl— because she’s gotta be, what, seventeen, eighteen? Somewhere around Raven’s age (at least she hopes)— comes to a stop in front of the table. She’s got suture supplies in one hand and surgical gloves in another, but Raven isn’t really thinking about that at all because _she’s practically standing in between Raven’s spread legs holy shit_.

“Hi,” she says, sweetly, and her voice is deeper than Raven expected, almost husky. It’s …pretty hot, actually. “I’m Clarke. Let’s take a look at that cut, hmm?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure.”

A single curl of white blonde hair (Raven doesn’t even think she’s ever seen that color in real life on the Ark, everyone on Mecha is so _dark,_ but this girl is like staring into the sun, madre de dios) has fallen loose from her low bun and her eyelashes are so long, and her grey blue eyes are so pale and Raven thinks she might stop breathing a little when Clarke pulls her bottom lip in between her teeth as she cleans the cut on Raven’s hand. It doesn’t even sting. Well, it might, but Raven’s not really paying attention.

“So, you’re, uh—“ she scrambles around for something to say. “You’re a doctor?” Raven feels the blush creeping up her chest but steadfastly ignores it.

Thankfully, Clarke doesn’t look up from threading the needle and just smiles slightly when she answers. “Yeah, well, in-training. I’m almost done. I’m hoping to be a surgeon before I turn 18.”

She doesn’t bother to hide her impressed look. “Damn. That’s awesome.” Clarke blushes a little and Raven thinks her heart actually skips a beat. “Why the age marker?”

“Oh, well,” the sterile needle flashes until the fluorescent lighting, “my mom was the youngest surgeon on the Ark, at 20. It’s kind of dumb, but it’s nice to have something to beat.” Clarke’s grin turns sly. Raven swallows audibly.

“Oh. Cool. That’s—uh, cool.” She kind of wants to slam her own head against the metal table and just die quickly.

The other girl just smiles and cradles Raven’s hand between hers, needle poised above the open wound. Its stopped bleeding, thankfully, and she can’t really feel any pain yet because the skin around it has gone numb, but she must look a little wary because Clarke whispers “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick,” and swipes her gloved thumb once, softly, across Raven’s wrist before she starts.

It hurts. A lot. But then Clarke glances up at her again from under her lashes, smiling in reassurance, and Raven forgets about everything else for a while.

So maybe, really, it starts like this: Raven falls in love.

                                                                                                                                             --

 

Finn and Raven break up the day after the Unity Day celebration. Raven brings it up first, because she loves Finn, she does, but she’s not cruel enough to pretend that they way she loves him will be enough. She’s not selfish enough to drag him along beside her when she knows he’s not the one she wants.

She can’t tell him who she really wants, either. Not just because its salt in the wound— although it is, or it would be— but because under Ark law, her thoughts are starting to border on actually illegal. (Why sanction love when it doesn’t reproduce? Marriage is a duty, a responsibility towards the acquisition of a singular viable offspring. There is no such thing as disregarding your duty when you’re on the Ark; everyone knows this.)

When Raven was small, and her mama was sober, they used to make jokes about her wild streak. Tia used to laugh with them and call her “little outlaw” when she started taking apart the wiring under the heating vents and crawling in the closets to check the lighting cables.

Raven was 7. She’d figured if they didn’t want her to mess with it they shouldn’t have made it so easy.  “Te gusta romper las reglas, _mija_?” her mama would laugh, and pat her braid.

_You like to break the rules?_

Now, its ten years later and she’s staring at the ceiling of her empty bunk, running her fingers over the scar on her palm where the stitches once were, thinking of soft hands, and pale skin, and blonde hair, and, well… it’s not so funny, anymore.

 

* * *

 

She gets over it. Not…entirely, per se, but she does her job and tries to ignore it, lets the scab heal over until all that’s left is the ache under her skin, nothing like the raw open wound of realizing you’ve fallen in love with the wrong person. That’s not to say Raven deals with it in a healthy fashion, but, really, what are they expecting. She’s not a damn saint.

There may be a little …stalking in the beginning. Just a little. Nothing weird. Raven just happens to detour past the Med Bay on her way back from the Engineering Station, ignoring the fact that its about a fifteen minute addendum to her walk home at night.

Wick and Finn ask her, once, why she shows up for dinner rations so late. She says she likes to take the scenic route, so she can catch a glimpse of the stars through the glass panels in the walls. Finn raises a derisive brow at that (he can always tell when she’s lying), but she can’t tell him she doesn’t need to see the stars anymore when she’s already seen the sun up close.

On a completely unrelated side note, injuries become a lot more frequent in the mechanic’s line of work. So frequent, that Raven knows more about Clarke than she ever actually thought she’d get to know.

(The effort of faking so many migraines and stomachaches and sudden coughs are definitely _definitely_ worth it.)

She knows now, that Clarke has just turned seventeen. That Clarke loves Earth history. That she loves the Ark’s music archives, especially the jazz era (Ella Fitzgerald, especially). Raven knows now that she and her father, _the_ head engineer, are incredibly close; and that she likes art almost more than healing, and that her stitches are perfect and neat to an absurd degree—because as the daughter of Abigail Griffin she can’t afford to be sloppy, and that she thinks Raven is amazing for training in Zero-G, and that when she’s nervous, she bites her lip, and when she’s embarrassed, her whole face blushes, even her neck, and Raven stares at it sometimes and wonders if the blush goes hot all over her skin—

Clarke studies her, out of the corner of her eye, sometimes. Raven might not be the doctor, but she knows the signs: dilated pupils, fast pulse, blush-stained cheeks. She gets it. Raven knows she’s not ugly, hell no, but having this girl, this fucking— gorgeous, whip smart, incredible girl stare at her like that, and be unable to _do_ anything about it, or _say_ anything, god, it _kills_ her.

So she steps back. Not too far, but just enough to keep her sane. (and safe)

Raven knows other things, now, too: like how Clarke’s best friend, a tall, dark skinned boy named Wells (Wells _Jaha,_ of course Raven falls in love with what amounts to Ark _Royalty_ , _claro que si_ , of course she does), who sometimes visits her while she’s working, is completely and utterly in love with her. Raven knows this because when he sees her, his face does this thing where his smile stretches too wide and his eyes never leave Clarke’s even when she’s talking with her hands (which she only does when she’s excited) and Raven also knows this because she sees that same look in the mirror every time she gets back from her visit to the Med Bay. Every damn time. It’s pathetic.

She also knows that Clarke doesn’t love him back, because that longing on his face is pretty familiar, too.

And it will always be familiar, because on the Ark, nothing ever changes. It can’t. Raven will love this girl from a distance, because that’s all she’ll ever be allowed; but if she can be near her, be close to her, just for a few moments in a day—she’ll take whatever she can get.

She won’t beg. That’s not who she is. Raven just…gets past it.

 

* * *

 

Finn gets arrested a few weeks after her eighteenth birthday. She doesn’t have time to see Clarke for weeks, too busy training and mourning and panicking. Then Abby finds her, looking wan and pale in the low lighting outside the Engineering Station, and says “I need your help.”

It all kind of goes downhill from there.

 

* * *

 

**CLARKE:**

 

The first time it actually comes up in conversation, its kind of an accident.

Finn tries to kiss her in the bunker, and she lets him, just for a moment (just because she’s selfish, and grieving, and if she closes her eyes she can make the firm press of Finn’s mouth into something softer, smoother, and the hand cupping her face won’t be so large and heavy, instead the fingers will taper off into familiar, dexterous, nimble digits and callused palms, the skin just a few shades darker, the lips just a little fuller, and—)

It does nothing except make her miss what she’s never actually had.

She steps back.

“I’m sorry. I’m, I’m so sorry. Finn, we can’t—“ she doesn’t know how to put it into words, but she feels the thick weight of guilt underneath the grief that comes from kissing someone when you want to be kissing someone else. “Its not that I don’t like you, its just—“

He furrows his brow as he follows her when she turns away. “Who is he?” Finn asks after a long time. His fists are clenched at his sides.

She doesn’t correct him, the secret so ingrained into her bones she doesn’t even think she can, not yet, not now. The ground is new and different, but some things are just too rooted in fear. “It’s not— I’m sorry, Finn. It’s just, complicated.” She sighs and repeats herself as she makes her way towards the ladder. “I’m sorry.”

He calls out to her as she’s leaving, but Clarke doesn’t look back.

She thinks that’s the end of it, and she’s stupid, really (Finn doesn’t do things halfway, she should know this) but the next night when Clarke comes back from a scouting trip with Monroe and Miller, she arrives to find the entire camp in a loose circle around the bonfire, spread out in front of the dropship. She can hear muffled shouts and cheering and for a moment she thinks: what, are we this greedy for entertainment? We have to resort to bullshit bread and circuses? (and then she remembers how many times her co-leader has read his stupid greek history anthology and sighs in acceptance of the inevitable). But the kids don’t sound like their having fun, in fact—

“—never touched her! What the _fuck_ , Spacewalker?” Bellamy’s voice is pissed, and Clarke pushes her way through the crowd just in time to see Finn take another swing. The firelight flickers across his face and she can’t make out his expression, but he’s yelling, unsteady on his feet.

“You just _had_ to drag her along. Couldn’t keep your dirty hands to yourself—“ Bellamy ducks away from Finn's wild punch, obviously not in the mood for games. Finn looks livid, and a little drunk, too. She notices a lot of moonshine tins in people’s hands with resignation. The party seems to have started without her this time.

“We can barely stand each other half the time, what are you _talking_ about? Calm the hell down,” Bellamy says, hands raised. She pushes forward, trying to hear.

The crowd is jostling at her back, yelling taunts and cat-calling, and Bellamy glances over to the side just in time to see her standing there in utter confusion, before Finn gets in a lucky hit that cuts across his jaw. Bellamy stumbles back, surprised.

“— _Then why is she in love with you_ ,” Finn shouts, panting, as Bellamy holds his hand to the side of his mouth and curses, trying to shake off the punch. The crowd falls to a hush at the words, and Clarke’s feet start moving without her realizing it, and suddenly she's stepping forward and slamming her fist into the side of Finn's nose. She throws her whole body into it—she’s pretty sure something cracks under the hit.

He stumbles back, dropping like a puppet with his strings cut.

“Holy shit,” says a voice from behind her in the shocked silence, sounding suspiciously like Jasper. “Did she just break his nose?”

“Holy _shit,_ ” murmurs Monty in agreement.

Clarke ignores them in favor of leaning over Finn, who’s still crumpled at her feet, moaning in pain. She's quiet for a moment, and when Finn looks up at her through watery eyes, she gestures to his nose with a nod.

“You have fun setting that yourself.”

She steps around him and heads towards the ship doors. The crowd parts for her like water, still in silence, but the rage bubbling under her skin is starting to turn into humiliation, so she just rushes through the opening and away from prying eyes. Once she’s inside, the tension bleeds out of her shoulders, and she can feel herself droop.

“Fuck,” she whispers. It echoes in the empty metal space. (She misses her dad. She misses Wells. She misses Raven. _God_ , she misses Raven.)

Footsteps clatter up the walkway. She doesn’t turn around to look who it is, because she already knows. Clarke grabs a poultice from the supply table and starts wrapping it so she doesn’t have to look at him.

“Nice right cross, Princess.”

“Hm. Thanks.”

“Probably hurt like hell.” He sounds grudgingly impressed.

She flexes her fist and shrugs. Her knuckles are bloody.

Bellamy clears his throat. “So, um.”

She finally turns around in time to see him shuffle his feet, his right hand scratching at the back of his neck. Clarke has never seen him look so awkward.

He swallows and continues, doggedly. “You, uh, what he said—that’s not. You’re not—are you?”

“No, Bellamy.” Clarke takes pity on him and turns around fully, in order to hand him the poultice. His right eye is starting to swell a little. “As much as it might shock you, you’re not exactly my type.”

He exhales in relief, forcefully, and leans back against one of her makeshift med-tables. “Well, alright, then. Figured I’d just, I dunno, check.”

He ducks his head and tries to apply the poultice with a wince. She rolls her eyes, taking it from him so she can do it herself, and studiously ignores his questioning gaze. He clears his throat again.   

“So, uh. Do you wanna talk about—ow, _shit_ , Princess.”

Clarke pulls back slightly from where she’d pressed down on the bruise, keeping her expression innocent. “Not really.”

He waits for her to finish cleaning the small split in the skin above his brow before he tries again. This time he sounds…sympathetic.

“So, you and Collins,” he starts, as she turns back to pick up the compress from the supply table again. “I was under the impression you two were…”

Clarke sighs as he flails a hand vaguely, trying to express what ‘they’ were without actually saying it. She appreciates his sudden attempt at subtlety in a way that she didn’t think would ever be directed at Bellamy Blake. Suddenly the weight of the last few days bears down on her, and she’s just so _tired_ , she doesn’t even try and stop the words from spilling out: “Finn… isn’t exactly my type either.”

He doesn’t respond for a moment, then: “Well, Princess, you’re type seems pretty specific. You got a checklist on hand?”

That makes her snort a laugh. She pulls back the compress to check the swelling, the redness barely noticeable against his smooth tan skin. (she thinks of another person, then, with tan skin, and dark hair, and brown eyes, and that worn red jacket that hangs loose over her thin frame, and how Clarke has always wanted to say something during those visits: ‘you should eat more, you look tired, have you slept, are you hungry, can I kiss you, do you feel this, too?’ She never did. She hates herself for that, sometimes.)

Bellamy is watching her with something like kindness. She looks away quickly.

He pushes off the table and smirks at her, his face melting back into his usual devilish grin. “He must be pretty special, then.”

“She is,” Clarke whispers, the words hanging heavy in the air of the dropship. Bellamy’s brow furrows in confusion and then: 

“Oh.” A beat. “ _Oh_.”

She twists her hands in her lap, trying not to acknowledge the fact that she’s just told what amounts to a complete stranger a secret that could’ve gotten her killed less than 6 months ago. But he doesn’t react the way she thinks he will, in fact, he looks thoughtful.

He steps towards her and puts a hand on her arm. “This is Earth, Clarke. Things can be different. We’re allowed to make our own choices down here.”

He sounds so sure, so serious; Clarke is almost jealous of Octavia for having this kind of man at her side her whole life. If she were any less herself, she might ask him to hug her.

Instead she smiles at him, a little bit sly, and says: “Whatever the hell we want, right?”

He’s got a nice laugh.

 

* * *

 

**RAVEN:**

 

She’s falling from the sky like a comet, engulfed in flames, wrapped up tight in a hunk of scrap metal and duct tape that has the consistency of a tin can, and earth is shrieking towards her, and she can’t see for shit, and she thinks she might be laughing, a little; wild, uninhibited — as if she still had any air in her lungs— and her only thought is: this feels too familiar to be the end. I think I’ve fallen like this before.


	2. The Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Something in her is thumping wild, and she feels her feet fly across the uneven dirt, faster than she’s run in her whole life. (One thing she will never hate about Earth: it will never ask you to slow down.)

CLARKE:

 

Over the following few days, only two things really change. The first, of course, is Finn. He comes to her in the aftermath of his humiliating outburst, head down and tail between his legs. She forgives him, painlessly, but decides to give them some much-needed space in some small attempt at sympathy.  Clarke is very familiar with the concept of pining. Nothing good can come of Finn’s fixation, and for that, part of her feels guilty. But when she looks at him, and sees that emptiness in his gaze, that hard wired expression of loss now that she’s pushed him away—it’s for the best.

(“It’s for the best.” She’s used to that, too.)

The second thing that changes is Bellamy.

With the sudden shift in leadership dynamics, and the heavy events of the evening before, the empty void at her side where Finn once stood is suddenly filled with the elder Blake. She’s confused at first, because just yesterday they were at each other’s throats, but she’s starting to realize it doesn’t really have anything to do with her, specifically. If she’s honest with herself, it probably has more to do with Octavia. With his sister suddenly declaring her independence with a thoroughly called-for wild streak, Bellamy has resorted to finding an alternative outlet for his older brother protectiveness. He’s been stuck to her side like a shadow for the last six hours and it doesn’t really look like he plans on leaving anytime soon (Clarke can’t really find it in her heart to complain—he’s actually pretty easy to talk to, even if the majority of the conversation concerns camp logistics).

“It’s getting dark out, we should be heading back. Do you have enough of your weeds yet?”

The man in question is leaning lazily against a tree about five yards off the riverbank where she’s kneeling with Finn’s satchel. It’s almost full, the bright red seaweed shoved haphazardly inside, and when she looks up she realizes he’s right. The sky is starting to dim and she can faintly see the stars starting to peak out behind the clouds. With the track record of the last few days, they really don’t want to get caught out too late after dark.

She stands up and half-heartedly tries to wipe the mud off her pants. “Yeah, I’m good for now. This should last me at least the next week, if things stay calm.”

“Because we’re just lucky like that, huh, Princess,” he sneers and pushes off the tree, but his voice is too tired to really make the words sting. She’s started to realize that a lot of his anger isn’t actually directed at her, but something else, some unknown entity. Clarke can only assume it has something to do with what he did on the Ark in order to follow Octavia to Earth, but she doesn’t want to burn the fragile bridge that they’ve erected these recent days.

It shocks her, sometimes, how much they seem to trust each other—as if it’s simply instinct at this point. Sharing secrets seems to be the only kid of trust Bellamy accepts, the only the he understands. It says a lot about him, and its probably unhealthy, but she can see the value in it. They’re a team, now, and it works. Some small structure of stability; a thinly veiled comfort in the absence of all the initial chaos.

She still looking at the stars when she continues on. “Hey, did you talk to Miller about rotating the guards on the wall where the wood was rotting—“

“Yeah, I made some kids start replacing the old shit today,” he answers, his long, loping strides making her rush to catch up. They’re not too far from the camp, but the night is coming on fast, and she can tell he wants her to hurry. “And make sure we switch the guys watching the smokehouse, I don’t want any dumbasses getting bored and—“

“Already covered, I spoke with Octavia and Jasper about it. We’re gonna have to work up a shift schedule soon.”

He nods, gruffly, and the silence is a little more comfortable as they finally come into the sight of the camp walls. They’re about 200 yards away when they walk under a gap in the trees and something catches her eye. She slows to a stop, causing Bellamy to curse as he almost runs into her.

“—shit, Clarke—“

She ignores him and squints at the light moving across the sky. “What’s that? Is that a star? A comet?”

“What are you—oh. Huh.” They’re standing in the middle of the path with their faces craned up at the sky, side by side, the camp forgotten for the moment in the blaze of light.

“I think we’re supposed to ask for something.”

She tilts her head towards him in confusion, but doesn’t look away from the star. Something in her doesn’t want to. It seems important. “What?”

Bellamy shrugs awkwardly. “I read about it. It’s some old Earth custom. A shooting star is— whatever, never mind. Let’s go.“

He grabs her bag from where she must’ve set it aside, and goes to keep moving when suddenly the sky lights up and the star bursts into bright red flames.

“Oh my god, Bellamy—“

“That’s not—“

The star, ship, whatever it is— is screaming as it hurdles towards the ridge about ten miles off. She scrambles off the path, Bellamy right behind her, and the ground beneath her trembles in the aftershock of the hit.

It fell from the Ark. It _fell from the Ark._

Something in her is thumping wild, and she feels her feet fly across the uneven dirt, faster than she’s run in her whole life. (One thing she will never hate about Earth: it will never ask you to slow down.)

Still, Clarke is trying to pace herself, knowing it’ll be a long run to the landing site, but her blood is pulsing fast and hard and her heart is thick in her throat and Clarke doesn’t want to hold back even for a second, so she looks back at Bellamy’s face beside her in time to see the shutter of shock and despair in his expression before it melts into deadly focus. She doesn’t have time to question it. She keeps running.

 

Bellamy and Clarke reach the clearing in record time, just as the sun starts to peak out over the treetops. They’ve been moving all night but the adrenaline in her limbs makes Clarke’s forget the fatigue, especially when they break the tree line and see the lump of steaming metal half-sunken into the wet ground.

“Is it manned? Or just autopilot—?” Bellamy’s voice is hushed as he slows to a stop beside her. She turns to look at him as they walk the dozen or so yards towards the ship, and her answer dries up. He looks panicked. More than she’s ever seen him before, more than with Murphy or Charlotte or the panther from the rescue hunt. His hand is twitching at his side and she feels herself slow to a stop, about 5 yards back from the pod. She can’t see the front yet, but it doesn’t look large enough to hold a zero-G crew, and she can feel her excitement start to melt into confusion.

“Clarke. Wait.” Bellamy is gripped the sleeve of her jacket, tight enough to bruise.

She feels the crease in her brow lowering at his tone. “What’s going on?” His hand doesn’t budge when she tries to pull away. “Bellamy, what—“

“You can’t,” he’s looking around, frantic,” you can’t tell them my name—you can’t let the Ark know I’m here. You can’t tell them.”

Clarke really doesn’t like the way his other hand is lingering near the hilt of his throwing axe. He looks like a wild animal; she treats him like one.   

“Okay, Bellamy, I won’t. I won’t tell them.” Her need to see the cab of the pod is overshadowed by her gentle tone, her hands slowing prying the other man’s ( _boy’s_ , she corrects herself, he looks like a boy, now; not a criminal, or a king, or whatever he is—just a scared little boy) fingers off the crumpled sleeve of her jacket until she’s free. But she doesn’t step back.

“Bellamy. Look at me.” His dark eyes are a little bit wild but he’s listening. “I won’t tell them. I promise, okay? Whatever you did up there, however you made it onto this ship,” because she knows that guard uniform wasn’t his, she can feel it, “it doesn’t matter. We’re a team. This is Earth. Things are different, here. ” She parrots his words back at him and something in him settles, thankfully. He glances up at the ship, so still and silent in the empty clearing, where her low voice cuts through the air like a knife.

She steps away as he nods, and turns over her shoulder to raise a brow in his direction. “You should know by now that I can keep a secret, Blake.”

He raises a brow in return, and exhales shakily, but when he steps forward its as if his breakdown had never happened at all.

\----

RAVEN:

 

She feels the water on her face before anything else. The cold droplets on her forehead cut through the haze of pain from the crash, slowing pulling her consciousness forward into the sticky recesses of a full body ache.

Raven is about 80% sure she’s dead.

That percentage number sky rockets to 100, when she blinks against the foggy feeling in her brain and tries to open her eyes only to see a wash of color—gold and blue and green and white. It takes her eyes a minute to adjust, but she can feel her gloved hand reaching up towards the blurred shape without a thought.

 _Am I dead,_ she whispers.

She can feel her mouth shape the words, but she can’t hear anything above the thickness in her ears, and suddenly the details in the shape start to shift and settle and the figure sharpens into wet curls of blonde hair and blue grey eyes and a dirt-stained hand clapped over a soft mouth, as if that alone can hold back the choked sob that is threatening to spill out.

Clarke is covered head to toe in dirt; her once-light hair mud caked and sticking to her sallow skin, with dark bags under her eyes and something that looks a lot like blood under her nails, and she looks like she hasn’t slept in days, weeks, years, and she’s shaking and smiling and brushing her dirty hand across Raven’s jaw and Raven feels her heart make that heavy _ka-clunk_ in her chest that she usually only hears when she fixes broken machinery. Its the most beautiful thing she's ever seen in her life. 

 _I must be dead_ , _then_ , she thinks, as she feels the hand cup her cheek. Huh. _I_ _t_ ' _s not so bad_. The water is still dripping onto her skin, tiny little shocks of cold that start to break apart the dream.

She takes a deep, gulping breath of air— and chokes.

The dreamy quality of the moment shatters, and suddenly Raven is gasping and lurching forward out of her seat, and hands are brushing her sweaty hair out of her eyes and someone is saying something quickly in the background and she can’t breath, her lungs are too thick, everything is too thick, and then another set of hands start rubbing her gently on her back as she kneels in the dirt and the fuzz in her head clears just enough for her to here:

“ –arke—she’s fine, calm down. Hey, _calm down_. It’s just the oxygen. It’s too pure. She must’ve come in too hot through the atmosphere.”

“Are we sure? What if its something from the crash, it could be internal—“

Raven’s lungs are burning, but the dizziness is starting to fade. She grasps the hand that’s holding her face and tilts her chin up to take another deep breath. Her lungs stay clear this time, but her skin feels a little buzzed. Actually, everything feels a little buzzed.

She still holding onto Clarke’s fingertips when she cuts in. “’Sup, doc.” Raven's voice is scratchy and thin, but she feels her mouth pull into a smile reflexively.  “Come here often?”

Clarke’s weakly laughs, like its punched out of her, a whoosh of air that sounds a lot like relief.

“Oh my god, Raven,” she gasps out, and Raven smiles wider at the way her voice breaks on her name. Clarke is alive and she’s smiling and the pure sunlight is catching in the waves of her blonde hair and there’s real dirt under Raven’s boots for the first time in her life, and Raven thinks half of the reason she couldn’t breath was just from happiness.

A darker hand, connected to a darker boy, reaches down and helps Raven to her feet, where she stands unsteadily. He’s watching with sharp brown eyes and Raven feels the small lingering panic that comes instinctually, something defensive that she can’t help, the fear that comes with someone watching her too closely when she’s watching Clarke, but then she realizes his look has nothing to do with that at all—in fact, he looks a little scared, too.

Raven’s train of thought comes to a screeching halt when Clarke abruptly crushes her into a hug, and Raven can’t do anything else but hold on tight and ignore the fact that she’s shaking, too.

 _I thought you were dead_ , she thinks, and she must accidently say it out loud because Clarke pulls back and smiles so blindingly Raven feels like she’s walked into a wall.

“Nope. Still here.” 

Raven wants to kiss her. _God_ , she wants to kiss her. So, ignoring the dark eyed boy watching from the side, and the radio sitting in the front seat of the ship, and the mist starting to gather into drizzling rain, and the mud under her boots and the soot on her fingertips, Raven pushes forward again and cups Clarke’s face in her hands and just—goes for it.

(She’s never been known for her restraint.)


	3. The Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Raven is so fucking gone on this girl. Jesus.

RAVEN:

It was always different in the dreams. Of course, most things are. But whenever she’d give herself the freedom to let her mind run wild (in the dark of her one bed apartment, when the emptiness on her bunk mattress started to feel too thick, and she could close her eyes and let her thoughts wander to warm hands and soft hair and pale skin and—well. ) she’d always thought she would be different. Slow, excruciatingly gentle. Maybe even sweet.

Raven, when she reaches forward— desperate, thoughtless, wild— is anything but sweet. She thinks she should be sorry about that, but she can’t remember why.

Clarke’s lips are chapped, slightly, and her teeth clack against Raven’s as she opens her mouth under hers in shock. Raven’s hands slide forward from cupping the other girl’s face to thread into her tangled blonde hair, and she slants her mouth across Clarke’s heatedly, her mind a rush of meaningless thought and motion, until her brain stutters to a stop when she realizes what she’s doing. Clarke’s mouth is slack under hers, and under her hands Raven can feel the stiff line of the other girl’s neck and shoulders and Raven feels her heart drop into her stomach likes its suddenly filled with lead. She pulls back, slightly, just enough to see those wide blue eyes and swollen red lips, and she tries to apologize but forgets what she was going to say as she pulls her fingers out of the mess of hair at the back of the other girl’s head but then Clarke frowns a little, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow in determination, and presses forward again and—

Well.

Considering she had literally _fallen from the sky_ and almost died in a fiery blaze, Raven thinks she might be allowed a little clemency at the low, embarrassingly breathless groan that rumbles out the back of her throat when Clarke’s tongue slides across the seam of her lips and her chest presses roughly against Raven’s as the girl crowds her back against the spaceship’s piece of shit exterior frame. The metal is still warm through the fabric of her jacket, but Clarke is warmer, Clarke is—Clarke’s not very sweet, either, she thinks dazedly, as teeth nip sharply at her bottom lip, holy _shit._ (Raven has never been happier to be proven wrong.)

“Um. Guys?”

Somewhere very far away, a place that Raven can’t see or hear or feel because Clarke hands are currently sliding up the inner layer of her jacket, a throat clears awkwardly.

“Isn’t this maybe—um, Clarke?” The gruff voice continues weakly as the hand creeping up her waist skims over her ribcage, while Raven feels her fingers clench into the girl’s threadbare black jacket to pull her closer, the feeling of her hips lining up perfectly, “Maybe not the time for— _oh my god_.”

Clarke pulls away, tragically, to turn to the other boy behind her. Raven can’t hear what she says, too busy gasping for air and trying not to look like she ran headfirst into a wall.

Wow. Okay. The doc’s got moves. 

The guy, who looks vaguely familiar, and Clarke are whisper-yelling at each other about something, and Raven can’t help but feel a fizzle of disappointment when she realizes her seven minutes in heaven (minutes? seconds? moments? days? who knows.) are officially over. She shakes her head to clear it.

“—maybe stop making out in the middle of grounder territory? _Maybe that’s a smart move?_ Christ. Let’s just get back to camp. _”_ The boy is refusing to look at her, whether out of anger or embarrassment or disgust or—something else.He ducks his head and turns away, stiff and uncomfortable. She thinks she should be ashamed, or something, she thinks the Ark, her mother, maybe Abby even, would want her to be ashamed, but she can’t think about anything but the roughness of Clarke’s hands and the weight of her pressing onto her chest or the taste of her mouth on her tongue. The boy clenches his fist as Clarke pushes away from the ship with a sigh. He looks angry, and so familiar…

Its probably nothing. Clarke reaches for his arm in placation. Raven, instinctively, slips her hand into her jacket pocket and steps forward neatly in front of the other girl, her pocket knife pressed flat against her wrist tucked under her sleeve.

“Hey.” The kiss is almost entirely forgotten, sadly, when Raven calls out to him warily. “What’d you say your name was?”

He looks at her and something in his eyes flickers. “I didn’t. It’s…Gus.”

Clarke raises a brow and nudges Raven with her elbow. “Raven. He’s a friend. Leave it at that. I’ll explain when we’re back at camp.”

“Yeah. Okay. Sure. Camp? Hey, oh shit, is Finn all right? I almost forgot to ask with the whole—“ she taps the other girl’s mouth with her thumb, dragging it across the lower lip. Clarke flushes bright red, clearing her throat and nodding and Raven forgets everything she was about to say because oh my _god_ she wants to kiss this girl. She can feel herself leaning in when she remembers where they are.

Gus clears his throat awkwardly, again, and motions towards the trees. “Spacewalker’s fine, c’mon. We should try and get back before midday.”

Raven watches delightedly as Clarke swallows and nods, obviously distracted.

“Yeah, hold on a second, though. I just need to find a signal stream to connect to the Ark radio, it’ll take like—“

Gus stiffens. So does Clarke. Suddenly the boy’s face clicks in her mind and she’s shoving Clarke behind her just as the boy’s hand reaches for the axe at his hip, the look in his eye wild and a little bit desperate, cornered like an animal, when Clarke forces herself out from between Raven and the ship and inserts herself, hands up, directly in the path between them. His hand stills over the hatchet.

“Clarke.” Raven doesn’t like the way his voice stumbles over her name. “I won’t—I’m not gonna hurt her. I just need the radio.” Raven’s sleeve loosens and she lets the hilt of the knife slide easily into the palm of her hand. The radio is inches from her back, sitting in her flight suit in the second seat, and she thinks if she can just get Clarke out the way they could grab it and run.

Raven grasps the back of the other girl’s jacket and tugs. She doesn’t budge. “Bellamy. Back off. Don’t be stupid. I told you no matter what you did—”

Oh, for fuck’s sake—“Clarke, he _shot the Chancellor_ ,” she hisses.

“I didn’t have a choice! My sister—“

“Shut up. Both of you, shut up.” Clarke looks ragged. She looks at Raven over her shoulder and suddenly Raven remembers Wells, the boy head over heels in love, Wells _Jaha_ , who tried to burn down the sacred tree and was thrown in prison just days before the Skybox was emptied and sent down to Earth. The boy who followed Clarke first. Why wasn’t he here with her? Why was she with Bellamy _Blake_ , of all people.

“Is he alive?” Clarke asks. Her lips are thin.

“Yes. And from what I heard, he’s gunning for your boy, here.”

“Wait—“ Bellamy’s face goes through a complicated mesh of expression (shock, relief, terror) before it settles. “Wait, did you say Jaha’s still alive?”

Raven shrugs and tucks her knife into her pocket again, something in his tone making her feel less threatened and more curious. “Yeah, looks like you’re a pretty lousy shot, huh?”

\---

Once everyone relaxes, Clarke makes the decision for them, unsurprisingly. Bellamy will give up the name of the officer who gave him the gun, and Clarke will make a deal for his official pardon on behalf of the 100, after they send the radio signal to the station. Raven thinks it’s interesting, how they phrase it that way. The 100, said with gravity in the word, a distinctive separateness from everything else. The 100, even though they’re not at the full number anymore (too many children dead and buried and its only been a few weeks). From what she can glean, Earth is not a heaven like the Ark has been led to believe, but the 100 have made it a home. That’s… daunting.

 But what is even more daunting, in Raven’s opinion, is the endless trek on foot through miles of rough terrain, barely an hour after she crash landed on earth in a fucking toaster on fire.  Her back is _killing_ her.

Still, Raven can’t help but bask in it. (the sunshine that warms the skin on her face, the mist in the air, the mud under her feet, _flowers,_ birdsong, a soft breeze, the heady feeling of unfiltered air in her lungs, Clarke’s smile when she brushes her fingers over the top of Raven’s hand—)

 “I can’t find a strong enough signal to connect with them via audio, but I think I can send a few blips in morse code just to let them now its reached the ground.” She mutters as they hike through the brush. The radio was shitty to begin with, she just needs some time and a little elbow grease to strengthen the connection—

“Jasper and Monty have a small set-up in the dropship. You can probably find some spare parts.” Bellamy offers this information quietly from in front of them, like a peace offering. From his mug shot they’d sent around the Ark, he’d looked a little crazed, a little dangerous, but she can see now that he’s just a guy with too much on his plate. His dark, sharp features and the blank lines on his face make it hard to recognize that he’s still a kid, no matter how old he really is.

“Good.” She nods, trying to focus on more important things, like the girl at her side who won’t stop smiling and giving Raven heart palpitations. “How long till we get to this set up?”

Clarke answers this time, still grinning at her. _Dios mío_ , Raven thinks, _she’s just so damn pretty_. “Maybe an hour? We’re almost there.”

“Maybe we’d get there faster if you two would actually watch where you’re walking,” Bellamy mutters, rolling his eyes and smirking when Clarke flushes in response. Raven just laughs, light-headed with joy (and possibly the oxygen levels and her minor head wound but who’s counting), politely holding a wet branch out the way as the other girl walks under it.

“You jealous, Blake?”

He snorts. “Please. I get more than enough of her attitude without getting anything physical.” Clarke huffs and throws a pebble at him. He sidesteps it easily and grins before turning and walking backwards, so he’s facing them, before lowing his voice like he’s offering a secret. “And with my luck, she’d just punch me out. Princess here has a killer right hook.”

“No shit. Really?” Raven is woman enough to admit that she finds that super hot. “So who’d you have to smack down?”

Bellamy looks gleeful. “Oh man, it was great—“

“— _Wow_ , guys! Hey!” Clarke cuts him off loudly. “Look at that! It’s the camp!”

So it is. She wouldn’t have noticed it from this distance, a solid 200 yards away, if not for the glint of metal in the sunlight. The wall-like structure more fence than anything, is a simple collection of tethered logs and wickedly sharp scrap-metal sheets, obviously scavenged from the main exterior shell of the drop ship. It looks like a warning, and from what they’ve told her about the people still on the ground, she’s grateful for it.

Raven fiddles with the radio antennae again, hesitant to open the main compartment until she has a solid worktable underneath it, and maybe tools. She should be able to have a channel open in no time, and hopefully Abby received the signal earlier.

She still thoughtfully fixing with the radio when Clarke reaches over to tuck a small red flower in the elastic that holds up her high ponytail.

Raven does _not_ blush.

Bellamy glances over and rolls his eyes so hard they might fall out of his head. “Jesus Christ. I’m gonna be sick.”

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to comment! i love feedback of any kind. and if you want to chat hit me up on my tumblr (www.theworthofhollin.tumblr.com)!


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